The Teaching and Cultivation of the French Language in England Part 43

At both Allestry's and Martin's, Pepys's booksellers, there was a great variety of French and foreign books, which often tempted him. "To my new bookseller's, Martin's," he writes on the 10th January 1667-8, "and there did meet with Fournier the Frenchman, that hath wrote of the sea and navigation,[833] and I could not but buy him." He was much interested in French treatises on music,[834] and sent to France for Mersenne's _L'Harmonie Universelle_, which he could not get at his bookseller's. Pepys's friend, William Batelier, brought him "one or two printed musick books of songs"[835] from France, among other French books. "Home," he again notes, on the 26th January 1668, "and there I find Will Batelier hath also sent the books which I made him bring me out of France, among others _L'Estat de France_, _Marnix_, _etc._,[836]

to my great content, and so I was well pleased with them and shall take a time to look them over ... but my eyes are now too much out of tune to look upon them with any pleasure." And when his failing eyesight prevented him from reading with ease, his wife, Batelier, and his brother-in-law, Balty St. Michel, would read to him in French as well as in English. He got Balty to read to him out of Sorbiere's _Voyage en Angleterre_, and under the date the 30th of January 1668-9 we find this entry: "I spent all the afternoon with my wife and Will Batelier talking, and then making them read, and particularly made an end of Mr.

Boyle's _Book of Formes_, which I am glad to have over, and then fell to read a French discourse which he hath brought over with him for me."

[Header: POLITE CONVERSATION FAs.h.i.+ONABLE]

No doubt the polite French literature which the French teachers recommended so strongly to their pupils had some influence on the character of the dialogues which form part of their manuals. Mauger, Festeau, and Laine all include polite conversations in their dialogues, and leave the old familiar subjects of buying and selling, wayside and tavern talk. Polite conversation was the fas.h.i.+on, and coteries for fostering it grew up in England on the model of those in France. Mrs.

Katherine Philipps, generally known as "the matchless Orinda," is perhaps the most prominent of the ladies who tried, without any permanent success it is true, to introduce the refinements of the French _salons_ into England.[837] Each member of the "Society of Friends.h.i.+p"

she gathered round her a.s.sumed fanciful names in the style of those affected by the adherents of the Parisian salons. "Orinda" was of course a great reader of French literature, and knew French perfectly. She is chiefly remembered for her translations of some of Corneille's plays into English.[838] French books of conversation, such as Mlle. de Scudery's _Conversations sur divers sujets_[839] or the similar volume by Clerombault, which was rendered into English by a "person of honour"

[1672], also give some clue to the tastes and tendencies of the time, though they had no direct influence on the dialogues specially written for students of French. But, like them, they turn on such subjects as the pleasures, the pa.s.sions, the soul, love, beauty, merit, and so forth. Thus the French teachers of the time, in introducing a new style into their dialogues, undoubtedly yielded, to some extent at all events, to the tastes of their numerous lady pupils. A large proportion of Mauger's pupils were ladies. He praised their accent, and considered it clearer and more correct than that of their brothers. And in the later editions of his treatise the grammar rules are given in the form of a conversation between a lady and her French master. Another French teacher of the time, the author of a collection of dialogues in which the new style is the dominating feature, also shows a decided preference for his lady pupils. This writer was William or Guillaume Herbert, the author of the _French and English dialogues in a more exact and delightful method then any yet extant_.

The thirty-four dialogues contained in this collection are all, with the exception of the first which is autobiographical, written in the _precieux_ style, full of points and conceits,[840] and all, with the same exception, are very alike and a little wearisome. Herbert says he does not write for every one, but for "les plus subtils." And in his first dialogue, which gives a free account of his condition and opinions, he proceeds to ridicule the traditional style of the French and English dialogues. A stranger addresses a friend of the author:

Pourquoi ne parle-t-il point de vendre et d'acheter?

Parce qu'il n'a rien a vendre et que fort peu d'argent pour acheter; et que les autres faiseurs de livres Francois en ce pais ont tout vendu et tout achete avant qu'il allat au marche.

Pourquoi ne dit-il rien du Manger et du Boire?

Pour tant qu'il y prend fort peu de plaisir, faute d'appet.i.t, et que quelques-uns de ceux qui l'ont precede l'ont fait pour lui, nommant fidelement toutes les viandes qu'ils ont portees a la table de leurs maitres. Qui leche les plats, en peut bien parler.

Pourquoi ne parle-t-il point des Habits, et de La Mode, du Lever et du Coucher, de la Chambre et du Lit?

Parce que nos maitres, qui ont ete valets de chambre ou laquais, lui ont epargne ce travail, comme leur etant plus propre qu'a lui.

Pourquoi se tait-il des Merciers, des Tailleurs et des Cordonniers?

Parce qu'ils aiment mieux argent contant que des paroles et que n'etant point dans leurs livres il ne se souvient guere d'eux et s'en soucie encore moins.

Pourquoi laisse-t-il les Ministres, les Medecins et les Jurisconsultes, sans faire attention d'eux?

Parce qu'ils ont a.s.sez d'esprit pour ne s...o...b..ier pas: et a.s.sez de langue pour parler pour eux-memes. Et toutefois il en parle a la derobee, sans leur donner un discours a part, quoiqu'il honore ces professions-la, et aime fort pa.s.sionement plusieurs personnes de ces trois etats, pour leurs rares merites.

N'a-t-il rien des Apoticaires, des Chirurgiens et des Barbiers?

Pas un seul mot, monsieur, parce qu'il se sert rarement des premiers, et que, par la grace de Dieu, il n'a ni playes ni ulceres ni verole pour les seconds, et que, les derniers le tenant a la gorge, il n'oseroit parler.

Il pourroit dire quelque chose des Parens et des Alliez.

Qu'en diroit-il, les siens lui etant si peu courtois? S'il parloit d'eux, ce seroit moyen de renouveler ses douleurs.

[Header: STATE OF THE TEACHING PROFESSION]

Herbert, it will be seen, had not a very high opinion of the social origin or ability of the majority of his fellow-teachers. He was a very unwilling member of the profession. He does not style himself "Professor of the French Language" on the t.i.tle-page of his dialogues, although he taught both in his house and away from home, because few people care to boast of their cross, and his cross was--to be reduced to belong to a profession "que tant de valets, de mecaniques, et d'ignorants rendent tous les jours meprisable." He draws a far from flattering picture of the common sort of French teacher. He is a "brouillon," a shuffling fellow, who boasts, dresses well, and intrudes everywhere, cringing and offering his services at a cheaper price than the genuine teachers. He can hardly write seven or eight lines of French correctly. Yet men such as this, says Herbert, pa.s.s for first-cla.s.s teachers, and some take upon themselves to correct and write books. What is more, they count many pupils, even among the n.o.bility.

Yet another cause of annoyance to Herbert was what seemed to him the presumption of the Blois fraternity. It is the fas.h.i.+on, he remarks scornfully, to say you come from Blois. And you do so if you happen to come from Normandy. He is not ashamed of his province, though he takes good care not to advertise it needlessly; Brittany (of which he was evidently a native) is better than Blois, according to him. Thus we may conclude that Herbert was one of the 'enemies' to whom members of the Blois group frequently allude. Festeau refers to them as being ignorant and envious persons, while Mauger describes them foaming with envy and jealousy, and trying to harm him in the eyes of his pupils, as well as casting aspersions on his grammar;[841] but he did not regard what they said, England having raised his grammar so high that "their envy cannot reach to it." And Mauger goes on to censure a certain section of the French teaching profession, "broken Frenchmen," who make their pupils speak rapidly, but not distinctly. "Have a speciall care," he exclaims, "that you have not to do with those that are not true Frenchmen as your Normans or Gascons. I confesse that a Norman that is a man of some quality or one that hath seen the world or that is a good scholar may possibly have the right accent, but any other that hath not such parts can never give the true accent." Herbert retorted that the Blois clique tried to persuade every one that Bretons and Normans cannot speak correct French. He naturally resented such a.s.sertions, and was not himself nearly so exclusive in the list of those who were not "good Frenchmen." He merely states that the English are greatly mistaken in their estimation of the French living here, "considering as such all those that speak their tongue, so that the high Germans, Switzers of the French tongue, Danes, Swedes, Dutch, Walloons, and those of Geneva pa.s.s for good French in the opinion of many, although in truth there are not here two naturall French 'mongst ten, which are taken for such, and who for their profit would gladly go for such."

There was every need, thought Herbert, of protecting the profession from these incompetent teachers. Before a tutor is engaged he should be made to translate a pa.s.sage from a good author from English into French, and then from French into English, and both the pieces should be examined by competent judges of both languages; for, according to him, a teacher must know English, or some other language with which the scholar is acquainted, such as Latin, so that there may be some foundation on which to build the new edifice.

Beyond the importance he attached to translation, we know little of Herbert's ideas on the teaching of French. He devotes more s.p.a.ce to criticizing the teachers. He does tell us, however, that French orthography is best learnt by transcribing French pa.s.sages, by which operation it impresses itself on the mind without effort. He was also an advocate of much and careful reading. Grammatical rules he considered necessary, and he had intended to publish a grammar together with his dialogues, but he was prevented from doing so by illness. He hoped, however, to issue it a few months later, but apparently he was again prevented from carrying out his design. [Header: GUILLAUME HERBERT] Yet two years after the appearance of his dialogues he published another work but of quite a different character--_Considerations on the behalf of Foreiners which reside in England, and of the English who are out of their own country, to allay the tempest which is too often raised in the minds of the vulgar sort, and to sweeten the bitterness of a bilious or cholerick humour against strangers_, in which he showed "that of all the Nations of Europe, the English and French should love one another best, as well for their vicinity as for the great commerce that is 'mongst them in time of peace, and for their consanguinitie, there being in this country thousands of families which are descended from the French, and as many or more in France whose progenitours are English." These 'considerations,' twenty in number, are mainly a plea in favour of the foreign churches in England and of the liberty of aliens to trade and work in this country, with an allusion to the "good usage of neighbouring Nations" towards the English fugitives of Mary's reign.

They are dated from the Charterhouse, June 1662, and appear to have been the only work Herbert published after his _Dialogues_. He had, however, previously shown his interest in the teaching of French by editing in 1658 the fourth edition of Cogneau's _Sure Guide to the French Tongue_,[842] which consisted largely of the style of dialogue which he ridiculed at a later date.

Herbert had had a long career in England before we first hear of him as a teacher of French. He had composed treatises in French and in English, both of which he wrote with equal facility. His language gives no clue to his nationality, but, as we saw, we may conclude from his autobiographical dialogue that he was a native of Brittany. He was, no doubt, the William Herbert, native of France, who received a grant of letters of denization in 1636. At that date he was living at Pointington, Somerset, and was married to an Englishwoman, Frances Sedgwicke. In the previous year he had prepared for the press a work in French called _La Mallette de David_.[843] How he spent his time in Pointington is not clear, but in 1640 he was tutor to the sons of Montague Bertie, second Earl of Lindsey. On the death of his wife in 1645 he moved to London, and published a number of devotional works in English, which he had composed at Pointington, chiefly for the benefit of his wife and children. He refers to the unfavourable reception of these compositions in his French and English dialogues, which he hoped would meet with a better fate.

Herbert also took a great interest in the foreign churches of London. He dedicated his _Quadripart.i.t Devotion_ of 1648 to the "learned, pious, and reverend Pastors, Elders, and Deacons of all the French and Dutch congregations in England." At a later date he published a biting pamphlet against a French Pastor, Jean Despagne,--the _Reponse aux Questions de Mr. Despagne adressees a l'Eglise Francoise de Londres_ (1657), accusing "le ridicule Despagne" of blasphemy and immorality, as well as criticising his French. In this work Herbert agrees with Laine in omitting a number of superfluous letters, with the intention of facilitating reading for foreigners, though he was opposed to too many changes, for fear of offending the partisans of the old orthography. The _Dialogues_ and the _Considerations in behalf of Strangers_ were the two works issued subsequently to the attack on Despagne, and with them ends all we know of the career of Herbert, critic of the French teaching profession, and earliest advocate of the "registration" of teachers.

The Jean Despagne attacked so bitterly by Herbert was none the less a welcome guest in this country, and was the only truly French minister in London during the Commonwealth. English as well as French, attracted by his excellent sermons, gathered round him. Thus he co-operated in a sense, and no doubt unconsciously, with Mauger and the other French teachers of the time, who were busy encouraging their pupils to attend the French church. Despagne was minister, not of the old church of Threadneedle Street, but of a new congregation in Westminster, which met at first in Durham House in the Strand, and when that was pulled down, at the chapel in Somerset House (1653).[844] He held aloof from the older church, and went so far as to criticise Calvin. He was attacked and accused of schism, but was protected by his powerful patrons, chief among whom was the Earl of Pembroke. An important group of the royalist English n.o.bility and gentry found in Despagne a means of satisfying their religious needs when the Anglican church was in abeyance. Among them was the diarist John Evelyn, who heard Despagne preach in the Savoy church. [Header: THE FRENCH CHURCHES] Another adherent, and a very faithful one, was a certain Henry Brown, who, in his English translation of one of Despagne's works,[845] speaks of the great resort of the English n.o.bility and gentry to the "excellent sermons and Doctrines" of the French pastor. Many continued to attend after the Restoration, Evelyn among others; as late as 1670 he remarks that "a 'stranger'

preached at the Savoy French church, the liturgie of the Church of England being now used altogether, as translated into French by Dr.

Durell."

The Savoy church had been authorized by Charles II. at the Restoration on condition that the English Liturgy in French should be used. The Threadneedle Street church, on the contrary, continued to use the Calvinistic 'discipline,' and regarded with jealousy and suspicion the church rising in Westminster. It refused all co-operation, and endeavoured to bring about the suppression of the new church. The Savoy church benefited on account of its situation in the fas.h.i.+onable residential quarter, while Threadneedle Street was away in the city.

Consequently many members of the English aristocracy and gentry continued to frequent the Westminster church even after the Restoration.

The use of the Anglican Liturgy was no doubt an additional attraction.

When service was opened there in 1661, by J. Durel,[846] among the English present were the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Ormond, the Countess of Derby and her daughters, the Earl of Stafford, and the Dukes of Newcastle and Devons.h.i.+re. Indeed the English gentry seem to have occupied the attention of the French churches just as much as the refugees themselves. The Threadneedle Street church felt the advantages of its Westminster rival in this respect, and at the Restoration, offered to establish a French Sabbath Lecture at Westminster for those of the English gentry and French Protestants who found Threadneedle Street too remote, hoping by this means to prevent division by having a separate church there.[847] The Threadneedle Street church, however, was not without its English adherents. Pepys went from time to time to both French churches, but more frequently to Threadneedle Street, as far as can be gathered from his diary, where he does not always specify which of the churches is meant. "At last I rose," he writes on the 28th September 1662, "and with Tom to the French church at the Savoy, where I never was before; a pretty place it is; and there they have the Common Prayer Book read in French, and which I never saw before, the minister do preach with his hat off, I suppose in further conformity with our Church." Pepys as a rule went to the Anglican church in the morning, and to the French in the afternoon. He usually has a very good word for the sermon, though on one occasion it was so "tedious and long that they were fain to light candles to baptize the children by." There were also services held at the French amba.s.sador's, which many of the n.o.bility attended, as well as French sermons at Court from time to time. Evelyn was present on one of these occasions: "At St. James's chapel preached, or rather harangued, the famous orator, Monsieur Morus, in French. There were present the King, the Duke, the French amba.s.sador Lord Aubigny, the Earl of Bristol, and a world of Roman Catholics, drawn thither to hear this eloquent Protestant." This was on the 12th of January 1662. At a much later date, September 1685, he heard another Frenchman, "who preached before the King and Queene in that splendid chapell next St.

George's Hall."

It appears therefore that the practice, common among French teachers, of urging their pupils to go to the French church, met with some response, as did their advice as regards the reading of French literature. On both these points the teachers of the middle of the seventeenth century are at one with those of the sixteenth, and, as a general rule, there is very little difference between the methods used in the two centuries.

Reading remained the basis of the teaching; dialogues were committed to memory and translated into English, less importance being attached to retranslation into French in later times. As for p.r.o.nunciation, the teachers of the seventeenth century realised the inadequacy of teaching it by comparison with English sounds; they laid all the more emphasis on the services of a good tutor, continuing, none the less, to supply certain rules, though not without a warning. As time went on, more importance was attached to the grammar, which, though still limited in theory to essential general rules, was often studied in the first place, and not left till need for it arose in practice. The general opinion is thus expressed by James Howell: "What foundations are to material fabriques the same is grammar to a language. [Header: FRENCH BY "GRAMMAR AND ROTE"] If the foundation be not well laid, 'twill be but a poor tottring superstructure; if grammatical rules go not before, there is no language can be had in perfection. Yet there are no precepts so punctuall, but much must be left to observation, which is the grand Mistresse that guides and improves the understanding in the research and poursute of all humane knowledge, _Quod deficit in praecepto, suppleat observatio._" Students who learnt on this method, called a combination of "grammar and rote," would read aloud with their tutor, chiefly for practice in p.r.o.nunciation; study the princ.i.p.al grammar rules and commit to memory the vocabulary of familiar phrases, and a few short dialogues; read and translate[848] French dialogues, and then pa.s.s to the favourite French authors; sometimes they would translate from English into French, or write French letters; finally they would converse as much as possible with their tutor, repeat stories they had read in French, and seize every opportunity of speaking the language and hearing it spoken.

Such was the method employed by the more serious French teachers of the time. There were, however, others, and apparently very many, who taught "by rote" alone without any grammar rules--a common method of learning modern languages. "In England, the French, Spanish, and Italian Languages are not the languages of our country, and spoke only by few Persons, yet 'tis evident they are taught in London, and several other places in the Kingdom, purely by conversation." "For it is well known,"

argues a writer on education,[849] "that there are Grammars writ for the French, Italian, and Spanish languages, and yet notwithstanding, these Languages are learned by Conversation ... little children, who know not what Grammar means, are bred up to speak foreign languages fluently and correctly.... There are some indeed, in England that teach Modern Languages by Grammar. But this is not at all necessary, as is unanswerably evident from those Persons who perfectly learn them without it. However, those who reach the Modern Languages by Grammar only teach their scholars so much of it as to know how to decline Nouns and Verbs and understand some few rules. For as for the Languages themselves, they are generally taught not by Books but Conversation, which is found by experience to be much the readiest, easiest, and best Method of teaching them.... Some by great application have learn'd French or Italian in half a year's time by conversation, and indeed any foreign Tongue is ordinarily taught in a year or a year and a half. And such as are two years in learning any of them are accounted either very negligent or else very incapable of retaining them.... Men who know little or nothing of French, Italian, or Spanish, quickly learn any one of these languages only by going twice or thrice a week to a club where they are obliged to speak it."

How common such practical methods of learning French were may be gathered from the fact that the few memoirs and similar writings which give any detail on the subject invariably mention them. For instance, the mother of Mrs. Hutchinson, the wife of the regicide and Governor of Nottingham, was sent to board in the house of a refugee minister in order to learn French.[850] As to Mrs. Hutchinson herself, she had a French nurse, and was taught to speak English and French together.[851]

Others had tutors. Thus the mother of Lady Anne Halkett, the royalist and writer on religious subjects, paid masters to teach Lady Anne and her sister "to write, speak French, play on the lute and virginals and dance";[852] and Margaret Cavendish, d.u.c.h.ess of Newcastle, held up by Mrs. Makin as an example to "all ingenious and Vertuous Ladies," also had tutors for the polite accomplishments, and refers to her language lessons as "prating."[853] She acquired a good knowledge of French, became attendant to Queen Henrietta Maria, and accompanied her in her exile in France.

[Header: FRENCH BY CONVERSATION]

An example of the opportunities of acquiring a knowledge of French, "in any leisure hour," as Milton said of Italian, is found in the Letters of Robert Loveday, the translator of part of La Calprenede's _Cleopatre_.

Loveday lived during the Commonwealth as a dependent in the house of Lady Clinton at Nottingham, where, he says, French "was familiarly spoken by the best sort of the family."[854] He therefore had every opportunity of learning the language, and was much helped by an old Italian gentleman, skilled in French, who was living in the house on the same footing as himself. As a result of his application he was able to translate several French works into English "in those empty s.p.a.ces of time which were left by those that command me at my disposall." He procured a copy of Cotgrave's dictionary and asked a friend in London to make enquiries at the booksellers if there was "any new French book of indifferent volume that was worth the translating and not enterprised by any other."[855] Loveday hoped by this means to give "larger scope to (his) narrow condition" at Nottingham. One of his first enterprises was the translation of a "mad fantastick Dream" he met with in Sorel's _Francion_, which he sent to his brother; but his chief work was a rendering of the first three parts of _Cleopatre_, which was hardly of the "indifferent size" he writes of. The several parts appeared in 1652, 1654, and 1655 respectively, under the t.i.tle of _Hymen's Praeludia, or Love's Masterpiece_, and were dedicated to his "ever-honoured lady" Lady Clinton. In the complete version, the fourth, fifth, and sixth parts are also ascribed to Loveday.

Thus practical methods gained a firm hold in the teaching of French; when grammar was studied, it was within limited boundaries, and only so far as desirable for practical purposes. In the teaching of Latin, on the other hand, more and more importance was attached to the study of grammar, which took the foremost place, literature being regarded as little more than a collection of ill.u.s.trative examples of the rules.[856] Grammar had become "a full swolen and overflowing stream, which, by a strong hand, arrogates to itself (and hath well-nigh gotten) the whole traffic in learning, especially of languages."[857] The use of the Grammar and reading books in Latin alone was another practice which engaged the attention of the reformers.[858] "A book altogether in Latin is a mere Barbarian to our children," wrote Charles Hoole,[859]

who published many of the popular Latin school-books with English translations, in the style of those which are always present in the French text-books. His opinion was that "no language is more readily got than by familiar discourse in it, and ability therein is in no way sooner gained then by comparing the tongue we learn with that we know, and asking how they call this or how they say that in another language, which we are able to express in our own." A writer of the time[860] thus describes "that wild goose chase usually led": "ordinarily boys learn a leaf or two of the Pueriles, twenty pages of Corderius, a part of Esop's Fables, a piece of Tullie, a little of Ovid, a remnant of Virgil, Terence, etc. ... to read the accidence, to get it without book, is ordinarily the work of one whole year. To construe the Grammar and to get it without book is at least the task of two years more, and then, it may be, it is little understood until a year or two more is spent in making plain Latin ... when it is all done, besides declining nouns and forming verbs and getting a few words, there is very little advantage to the child." And a French teacher,[861] writing at about the same time, has left a very similar picture. [Header: GRAMMATICAL STUDY OF LANGUAGES] He describes how the child slaves till the age of fifteen or sixteen, forced to learn against his will a little Latin and Greek, with little result after seven or eight years of hards.h.i.+p. "Not 10 per cent really know either; they are buried under a _fatras_ of words and rules, which stun the memory and overturn the judgment, and all under the rule of the rod." Such is the learning of a foreign language "by grammar."

The feeling of dissatisfaction with the usual method of teaching Latin in grammar schools, however, seems to have been general in the seventeenth century, and many were the protests and appeals for reform.

"No man can run speedily to the mark of languages that is shackled and ingiv'd with grammar precepts," wrote Joseph Webbe,[862] who draws a careful distinction between the grammar-Latin thus acquired and what he calls Latin-Latin,[863] that is, "Such as the best approved authors wrote and left us in their books and monuments of use and custom," as distinct from "that Latin which we now make by grammar rules, and their collection out of that custom and those authors was to make us write and speak such Latin as that custom and those authors did, which was Latin-Latin, but it succeeded not."

Consequently there arose a belief that "practice"--in speaking, reading, and writing the language--should take its place by the side of grammar.

Writers pleaded, in the style of Elyot and Ascham, for the teaching of Latin on more practical lines, quoting Montaigne's experience.[864]

Thomas Grantham[865] opened a private school, in which he sought to deliver youth from their "great captivity" and the hards.h.i.+p and uselessness of learning grammar word for word without book and in Latin, which the boy does not understand, "just as if a man should teach one an art in French when he understands not French." Grantham, on the contrary, taught his scholars to understand the rules first, and by repeatedly applying them they came to know them without book, whether they would or no. Similar was the method of the French teachers, who often carried the idea further, and taught their pupils the rules as need for them arose in practice.

John Webster thus puts the case for and against learning by "rule." "As for grammar," he says,[866] "which hath been invented for the more certain and facile teaching and obtaining of languages, it is very controvertible whether it perform the same in the surest, easiest and shortest way or not, since hundreds speak their mother tongue and other languages very perfectly, use them readily, and understand them excellent well, and yet never knew or were taught any grammar rules, nor followed the wayes of Conjugations and Declensions, Noun or Verb. And it is sufficiently known that many men, by their own industry, without the method or rules of grammar, have gotten a competent understanding in divers languages: and many unletter'd persons will, by use and exercise, without Grammar rules, learn to speak and understand some languages in far shorter time than any do learn them by method and rule, as is clearly manifest by those that travel.... And again, if we conceive that languages learnt by use and exercise render men ready and expert in the understanding and speaking of them, without any aggravating or pus.h.i.+ng the intellect and memory, when that which is gotten by rule and method, when we come to use and speak it, doth exceedingly rack and excruciate the intellect and memory: which are forced at the same time, not only to find fit words agreeable to the present matter discoursed of, and to put them into a good Rhetorical order, but must at the same instant of speaking, collect all the numerous rules of number, case ... as into one centre, where so many rayes are united and yet not confounded, which must needs be very perplexive and gravaminous to memorative faculty: and therefore none that attains languages by grammar do ever come to speak and understand them perfectly and readily, until they come to a perfect habit in the exercitation of them, and so thereby come to lose and leave the use of those many and intricate rules, which have cost us so many pains to attain to them, and so to justifie the saying that we do but _discere dediscenda_." Those who learn by "use and exercitation," on the other hand, acquire languages more quickly and with better results. If the study of grammar is insisted on, it should be made very brief. The indeclinables require no rules, but are learnt by use. [Header: LOCKE ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH] Of the declinables the only ones that present any difficulties are the noun and the verb, regular and irregular. As to the irregulars, they are best learnt by "use," as rules only "render the way more perplexed and tedious. And the way of the regulars is facile and brief, being but one rule for all."

Many others wrote in a similar strain,[867] advocating the teaching of Latin on lines widely used in the teaching of French. Several actually specified the modern language, which was first mentioned in books on education in this connexion. Thomas Grantham, in his _Brain Breaker's Breaker_ (1644), points out that many young gentlemen and ladies learn to speak French in half a year without grammar, and argues that the same purpose could be achieved with Latin and Greek in a twelvemonth.

Similarly George Snell argued that Latin might be learnt "in as short a time as a Monsieur can teach French,"[868] for the p.r.o.nunciation, so great a task in learning the living tongue, is of no importance in the dead language. At a somewhat later date, when French had made more headway in the scholastic world, Locke plainly states that people are accustomed to the right way of teaching French, "which is by talking it into children by constant conversation, and not by Grammatical Rules,"[869] and proposes that the same method should be applied to Latin. "When we so often see a Frenchwoman teach an English girl to speak and read French perfectly in a year or two, without any rule of grammar, or anything else but prattling to her, I cannot but wonder how gentlemen have overseen this way for their sons, and thought them more dull and incapable than their daughters."[870] Elsewhere Locke again draws comparisons between the teaching of Latin and that of French,[871]

and a French teacher of the early part of the eighteenth century recognized the importance of this tribute when he published a grammar intended to confirm the knowledge acquired by "practice."[872]

Yet all these proposals and protests do not seem to have had much effect on the teaching of Latin. In a few cases, however, experiments were attempted, usually in connexion with French. Several were made with the _Janua_ of Comenius, which had early been adapted to the teaching of French as well as Latin. The theories of Comenius himself had no doubt inspired the English reformers. He had written that rules are thorns to the understanding, that no one ever mastered a language by precept alone, though it is often done by practice; rules, however, should not be entirely discarded.[873]

J. T. Philipps, who was later tutor to the Duke of c.u.mberland, son of George II., relates[874] how he taught both Latin and French on practical lines with the help of Comenius. His pupil first got a good notion of the Latin tongue by studying the verbs and nouns, and then learning the Latin column of the _Janua Linguarum_. "I likewise at som leisure Hours," continues Philipps, "taught him to read French and when he had good the p.r.o.nunciation, he labour'd for some time, as he did before in the Latin, to make himself Master of the French Verbs and Nouns, and then began to learn the sentences in another column of the _Janua Linguarum_, which, by the a.s.sistance of the Latin, he mastered in a very short time. So that before the end of the first year, he could read Fontaine's _Fables_ from French into English, and give me an account of the French Minister's text which he heard, and part of the sermon; [Header: LANGUAGES LEARNT WITHOUT GRAMMAR] for I charg'd him never to miss the French Church, that he might the better accustom himself to the true Accent of that Tongue.... I spent an hour every Sunday Morning all the time the Boy was with me, to read over several short Catechisms or systems in Divinity both in French and Latin."[875]